interest from lihir

this just came accross my desk:

Market looks to be anticipating a Lihir Gold bid for Perseus

On Friday, at Lihir's Analyst Day Presentation, Lihir outlined a long term strategy to grow its West African gold production from the current level of 160,000 oz pa from the Bonikro project in Cote d'Ivoire to around 1m oz over the next decade via exploration success and acquisitions. Criteria for acquisitions were listed and included :

production of 200,000 oz pa

+10 year mine life

projects either in production or feasibility/development or late stage exploration

exploration upside

$200-$700m

bottom quartile cash costs

continuous improvement upside

Perseus looks to largely fit this criteria : PRU has just completed the Definitive Feasibility Study for its Ayanfuri Gold Project in Ghana. Ayanfuri is expected to produce 1.92m oz over 10 years with the first 4 years production at a rate of 220,000 oz pa. PRU have stated they are confident of increasing the production rate of Ayanfuri to at least 300,000 oz pa reasonably soon after production commences given the 5.3m oz resource base. PRU also has the Tengrela deposit in Cote d'Ivoire which a scoping study released earlier this year indicated it had the potential to produce 838,000 oz over an 8 year period. Drilling is currently underway to expand the Tengrela resource.